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Cloud woke up within a bombardment of his senses less coherent than a dream.
Moonlight illuminated the scene, surreal under the stars, a too sweet floral scent on the wild breeze. Grasses swayed around him like the ocean’s surface, silver and beautiful in a way the sun could never enchant them. He spun around, blinking rapidly as he tried to decipher if the world around him was even moving at all or if he was so dizzy he couldn’t tell.
His ribs were tight with every inhale.
The suffocating pressure around his torso, snuggest at the waist, was familiar, but he had no time to dwell on it as he automatically moved in time to a melody he felt more than heard. His right hand was clasped in another’s, his other hand resting on a shoulder taller than his.
Most striking of anything else within his sight was a splash of vibrance against the greyscale— mako-tinted eyes so close to his that he could easily make out the aquamarine hues pooled around their narrow pupils.
Words failed him.
Cloud immediately tried to resist the flow of the waltz he’d been mindlessly dancing to, gasping and stumbling as he fully inhabited his body in a snap. He nearly twisted his ankle trying to escape, realizing that he was back in the heels he’d donned at the Honey Bee.
“Tsk, tsk, such an unpleasant expression.” Sephiroth didn’t let go of his hand, other arm securely around Cloud’s waist. “That must mean you’re finally here.”
“Let go!” Cloud’s heart pounded as he took stock of his situation. He was unarmed, he was in heels, and they appeared to be alone in the middle of nowhere, under the clear night sky. He struggled again, only for Sephiroth to sigh, keeping his hold on Cloud even as he writhed in his grip.
“Can’t we enjoy a pleasant evening together? You always make everything so difficult,” admonished Sephiroth.
Cloud unsuccessfully tried to push Sephiroth to the ground, failing as Sephiroth braced himself, Cloud’s hand still in his crushing grip. “Where’s Tifa? Aerith? What did y-”
Sephiroth sighed.
“Since you insist, I see this outing will have to be more of a demonstration than a date.”
Cloud’s internal monologue stalled to a dial tone at the word date.
Sephiroth pushed him into doing a twirl. Cloud’s hand reached up to the stars in Sephiroth’s, the rest of his momentum flying out behind him with a swish of purple skirts around his legs.
So it was the entire outfit. Wonderful.
Just as Cloud thought he could come back around on the attack, Sephiroth smirked.
Gossamer threads of silvery light rained down upon him all at once like a hail of swords— only that none pierced his flesh. They snaked around his limbs tightly in a web of barely visible strands, so precise that he couldn’t move. It was as if he’d been shot and then petrified, kept in perfect dramatic posture like a marble statue. He wordlessly cried out as his muscles immediately protested to his new precarious pose. Only one of his feet was on the ground, on his tiptoe within the heel, and his hand was stretched high, seemingly pulled even higher by the force keeping him there. His other limbs splayed out behind him in the air mid spin, back bowed forward, forced into an even more gracefully restrictive curve by the corset.
All Cloud could move was his head, and he strained to keep his head held high as his body trembled in his deceptively delicate entrapment.
“There. Now we can have a conversation.” Sephiroth paced around Cloud, making him feel like a pinned butterfly in a collection. “Your friends are safe, so give all of yourself to me.”
He didn’t want to be relieved at anything that fell from Sephiroth’s lips, but it did soothe him. Cloud gasped for breath at the unnatural stretch some of his muscles were feeling, especially in the calf supporting his weight. “What do you want?”
“I just told you.” Sephiroth dragged his hand across Cloud’s upper back on his way around his body. Despite himself, it sent a thrill down Cloud’s spine. “Give in to me. Be honest with yourself.”
Cloud grit his teeth. “About what?”
Sephiroth leaned close, as was his infuriating habit, low voice at home as it settled directly into Cloud’s ear. “Your feelings for me.”
That was easy.
“I hate you.”
Sephiroth breathed a laugh against him, so close Cloud felt the exhale on his hair. “And?” His hand dipped lower down Cloud’s back. Cloud could barely feel it under the reinforcements of the dress, but the knowledge that Sephiroth was doing it was enough.
“I hate you. A lot.”
“Your heart has never been purely one thing or the other, Cloud, and I wouldn’t expect that to start now.” Sephiroth tenderly stroked Cloud’s face, taking his place directly in front of him.
His gloved hand tilted Cloud’s face up, keeping their eyes locked onto each other’s, Sephiroth’s relaxed and smug, Cloud’s burning with fury. Sephiroth indulgently pet Cloud’s cheek. Cloud tried to turn his head away but couldn’t hide the blush as Sephiroth continued speaking. “The adoring follower you used to embody hasn’t died. Was I not your true north, your ideal? Would you let one of the few things that can blossom in that wasteland inside of you rot?”
His words stung more than where the strings dug into his skin.
Cloud couldn’t tell how his bonds could be so strict without anything anchoring him in sight, but he assumed Sephiroth’s magic was potent enough to shift reality around them as he pleased.
Was it even real? Wasn’t it all a dream?
Real or not, his first reaction was shame. He’d wanted not only Sephiroth’s attention, his praise, his approval, but to become him, to fully give himself in a way that was only suggested to him now as a shadow of a fantasy.
His obsession had turned bitter long ago.
It didn’t stop him from wanting Sephiroth’s hands all over him, that sultry tone coaxing noises out of him no one else would ever hear. Cloud stalled for time, already feeling himself teetering on the edge of what remained of his resolve.
“Why do you even want this? Get whatever it is over with.”
Sephiroth was patient, idly turning his attention to Cloud’s hair, being sweet on him despite being the cause of building pain. “Our fates are one. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you accept it, the better for you. I’m only trying to help you.
“Give in, and I’ll set you free.”
Cloud wondered how long this could go on for, but the soreness in his body didn’t want him to find out. “Free?” he pressed, trying to shy away from Sephiroth’s touch, ignoring how good it felt. “Surrendering isn’t being free.”
“A train must follow the track it is on, yes? I’m offering to clear the tracks, to guide you to our purpose. Isn’t it freedom to spin in your proper orbit?” Sephiroth smoothed the back of Cloud’s hair. “Will you keep withholding your desires? It’s natural, I suppose, for the flesh of a warworn Soldier to forget the intensity of pleasure.”
Sephiroth didn’t touch him as Cloud had anticipated. He fought down the disappointment he didn’t want to admit to having as Sephiroth instead raised his fingers to the air above Cloud.
He strummed the air as one would the strings of a harp.
The threads around Cloud’s body thrummed with the touch, pure pleasure reverberating through his muscles. His mouth fell open, eyes wide. “Ah!”
It went without Sephiroth voicing the threat that he could inflict as much in pain if he desired.
Sephiroth plucked the invisible strings holding Cloud in place again, expression merely curious as Cloud shivered and cried out again, his shout tapering off into a moan. It was a mixture of the pleasant exertion he felt after a satisfying workout and the heated heaviness of arousal, all stirred up by Sephiroth playing his bound nerves like an instrument. Were he not trapped in such a strained position, he might’ve fully lost himself to the sensation.
“I want you to give me all of yourself.” Another chord strummed, another burst of notes from Cloud’s chest. Sephiroth prowled around him again, laying a hand on Cloud’s suspended ankle. Cloud was too breathless to protest even if he’d wanted to. He gently stroked up Cloud’s leg, rumpling the dress that managed to not be caught on whatever magic was binding him.
Sephiroth’s palm caressed the back of his thigh, pausing there. Cloud was mortifyingly certain Sephroth didn’t miss the soft noise he drew from Cloud’s throat. “Stoke the fire of your hatred, the fire of your lust.” Sephiroth leaned over Cloud from behind, murmuring into his ear as his fingers curled around Cloud’s thigh. “Kiss me like you want to burn me with you, and I’ll keep my word.”
Give in.
Cloud’s existence felt like a barely contained flame, only held within his form by his skin and the silk-like cords around him. Aroused didn’t cover it— he was wound tight to the point of feral and overheated, desperate to break and combust and consume whatever he could reach of his tormenter and lover.
Without meaning to, he’d been speaking already, slurring please s together.
Cloud strained, this time trying to angle himself forward, to no use. Sephiroth seemed to take pity on him, letting go of his leg and letting the dress fall back into place. He got close, face to face, feline eyes back on Cloud’s.
“Well?”
Cloud swallowed hard. Sephiroth’s hand cradled his cheek again and Cloud parted his lips, his gaze drifting down to Sephiroth’s mouth, finally letting himself be affected by Sephiroth’s eternally alluring upturn of his lips. He strived to bridge the gap, panting. “I give in- just like you want.”
“So close, Cloud.” Sephiroth dragged the tip of his thumb against Cloud’s bottom lip, the tease sending a bolt of desire through him. Cloud whimpered, shaking. “What do you want?”
“You, you, please-” If there was a magic word, Cloud already knew it. “Sephiroth.” He sighed, going limp in his bonds, body simply giving out, voice cracking as he chanted more than spoke. “Sephiroth, Sephiroth-”
Sephiroth’s mouth on his was firm and demanding, holding Cloud still as he kissed him. Cloud returned the kiss in equal measure, closing his eyes and letting the sparks of pleasure swirl inside of him and rise like embers against the dark sky. When their kiss broke for a breath, Cloud expected to be freed immediately, eyes flickering up to Sephiroth’s.
“Savor it,” murmured Sephiroth. He ran his hand down Cloud’s back and gently tugged on the bow of the corset laces. Cloud could hear rather than feel the ends come undone. It took a moment more for Sephiroth’s fingers to loosen the woven laces, but once he did Cloud inhaled deeply, gratitude flooding him as the corset gave way.
Cloud initiated the next kiss, spurned on by eagerness and something close to affection, seeking comfort he couldn’t conceptualize having anywhere else in that moment. Sephiroth smiled against him, gloating even without words as Cloud basked in his touch. He couldn’t tell how, but Sephiroth freed him from his clear strings gradually, starting with his wrists, forearms, elbows, shoulders-
He flailed for a moment, hands landing on Sephiroth’s armor. Cloud’s upper half collapsed against Sephiroth, but he didn’t pull out of the kiss. Cloud clung to him, arms around his neck, thinking only of the thrill and heat between them.
It wasn’t all that different from his desire to run Sephiroth through again. In fact, the anger blended into the mire of emotions pounding through him. It intensified the rest, and in a shocking way, knowing that Sephiroth wanted this, Cloud couldn’t help groaning with need, every space that could be occupied on the spectrum of love and hate all filled with Sephiroth all at once.
Sephiroth severed the rest of the magic holding Cloud in place.
Cloud embraced Sephiroth, scrambling to press himself flush up against him, trying to kiss him more, inviting deeper kisses and no resistance. Sephiroth indulged him for awhile, but pulled back before Cloud was done.
“There, was that so bad?” Sephiroth nuzzled Cloud’s hair. “You’re still my lovesick puppy after all.”
“Huh?” Cloud slipped out of his shoes, exhausted and unsteady. He couldn't comprehend anything Sephiroth was saying. He leaned on Sephiroth, head against his chest.
“Remember how good you have it when you obey, Cloud.” Sephiroth kissed the side of his hair. “Remember all I can give you, even if I’ve only given you a taste.”
Cloud blinked, trying to make sense of the entire scenario through his exhaustion and haze of desire. Questions about how he'd even gotten there if it wasn't a dream were coming back. “Where…?”
“Hush. I’ll return you safely.”
-
Cloud woke up the next morning in his usual gear, in the room he’d recalled Tifa finding for them. He shook his head and sat up, inexplicably sore and somehow unsatisfied. He winced when he stood up, suddenly remembering the vivid dream— or what he hoped was a dream.
When he closed his eyes, he could see Sephiroth’s smirk above him and taste their kisses. How Sephiroth had played with him like a doll or instrument to tune staggered him, but he couldn’t deny how good it’d felt in a deeply worrying way.
Of all things, he didn’t want yearning to echo in his heart from long ago.
“Bastard.”
